Yucca whipplei Torr.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Yucca whipplei' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/yucca/yucca-whipplei/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

Genus

Common Names

  • Our Lord's Candle

Synonyms

  • Hesperoyucca whipplei (Torr.) Trel.

Glossary

glaucous
Grey-blue often from superficial layer of wax (bloom).
inflorescence
Flower-bearing part of a plant; arrangement of flowers on the floral axis.
lanceolate
Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.
pendent
Hanging.
perianth
Calyx and corolla. Term used especially when petals and sepals are not easily distinguished from each other.
pollination
Act of placing pollen on the stigma. Various agents may initiate pollination including animals and the wind.
subspecies
(subsp.) Taxonomic rank for a group of organisms showing the principal characters of a species but with significant definable morphological differentiation. A subspecies occurs in populations that can occupy a distinct geographical range or habitat.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Yucca whipplei' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/yucca/yucca-whipplei/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

An evergreen, mostly stemless shrub, producing from a rootstock a hemispherical rosette of much crowded leaves up to 6 ft in diameter. Leaves 1 to 3 ft long, 12 to 114 in. wide at the base, terminated by a sharp slender spine, margins very finely toothed; the whole leaf is rather glaucous. Flowers pendent, fragrant, closely packed on the upper part of a perfectly erect, stout stem 8 to 15 ft high and 3 to 5 in. in diameter at the base; the inflorescence itself as much as 7 ft long and 1 to 2 ft wide. The six segments of the perianth are ovate-lanceolate, pointed, greenish-white tipped and edged with purple, more or less incurved, and give the flower a diameter of 212 to 3 in. Bot. Mag., t. 7662.

A native mainly of southern California, in the coastal ranges south of San Francisco, extending inland to the borders of the Mojave desert; also reported from the Mexican State of Baja California and from Arizona. It was known to the Spanish missionaries in California, but was first described from specimens collected during Lt Whipple’s exploration for a railway route from the Mississippi to the Pacific in 1853–4. Y. whipplei is a splendid species, surpassing all other yuccas, Sargent remarks, in the height and beauty of its panicles. ‘From day to day the waxen tapers on the distant slopes increase in height as the white bells climb the slender shafts. At length each cluster reaches its perfection, and becomes a solid distaff of sometimes two – yes, even six – thousand of the waxen blossoms’ (Mary Parsons, The Wild Flowers of California (1904), p. 70).

Y. whipplei first flowered in Britain, under glass, with Mr Peacock at Hammersmith, in 1876. So far as is known, its first flowering in the open air in this country was with Mr Fletcher at Aldwick Manor near Bognor in 1910 (Gard. Chron., Vol. 51 (1912), Feb. 17, supplementary illustration and p. 106); the plant had been received some six or eight years earlier. A very magnificent example flowered with W. M. Christie at Watergate near Chichester in 1921 (Journ. R.H.S., Vol. 47 (1922), fig. 23).

Y. whipplei is nearly hardy, and probably more plants have been killed by winter wet than by frost. At Bodnant in North Wales, where it has flowered several times, the plants are given no more than overhead protection in winter, to keep rain out of the crown. But all the recorded flowerings of Y. whipplei in Britain are from gardens near the south or west coasts. Yuccas need warmth in late summer and autumn if they are to form their embryonic flower-spikes and it may be that Y. whipplei needs more warmth than most other hardy species at that time. A plant at Borde Hill in Sussex vegetated for thirty years before flowering, which at least says something for its hardiness. At Bodnant, however, a plant from home-raised seeds set in 1944 flowered in 1951.

In its typical state Y. whipplei is monocarpic, i.e., the whole plant dies after flowering, and it seems that most plants grown in Britain are of this nature. Fortunately this species is self-fertile and produces good seed in this country, though artificial pollination is advisable, to secure a good set. But some wild plants are perennial and the following varieties or subspecies of these have been distinguished:


var. caespitosa M. Jones

Synonyms
Y. w. subsp. caespitosa (M. Jones) Haines

This forms large clumps and several rosettes may bear flowers simultaneously. This variety is confined to hot and dry localities bordering the Mojave desert and would probably be unsuitable for British conditions.

var. intermedia (Haines) Webber

Synonyms
Y. w. subsp. intermedia Haines

In this variety only one rosette flowers in each season, but flowering stimulates the formation of adventitious growth-buds beneath the spike, from which new rosettes emerge. Leaves to 3 ft long. This occurs in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.

var. percursa (Haines) Webber

Synonyms
Y. w. subsp. percursa Haines

This spreads by rhizomes, forming a lax clump. Only one rosette produces a spike, but the younger rosettes perpetuate the plant. Leaves about 1{3/4} ft long. Monterey and Sta Barbara Counties.Y. whipplei differs from other yuccas in having a slender, conic-cylindric style rising abruptly from the top of the ovary and enlarging into a capitate, papillate stigma – or as J. G. Baker put it: into ‘a stigma shaped like the top of a music-stool, and encrusted all over with white crystalline papillae, like those of an Ice-plant.’ Another distinction lies in the glutinous pollen, and there are certain differences in the structure of the capsule. The anomalous characters of this species were recognised by Dr Engelmann, who proposed for it the rank of subgenus, named Hesperoyucca. This was raised to generic rank by Trelease in 1893. But other botanists have continued to include it in Yucca as a monotypic section or subgenus.